


The February '12 Case

by moonqueen



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-12 10:51:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7931836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonqueen/pseuds/moonqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lu Han is going insane and Minseok reminds him of everything he's lost. </p><p>Or in other words: In 2012 a story about a boy who lost himself to his own demons grew to become quite a phenomenon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The February '12 Case

**Author's Note:**

> Re-uploaded with permission from the original author.

**2012**

It’s February, it’s cold, and it’s not Lu Han’s day. Snow is falling down outside like the feathers that had been spread all across the floor the last time he experienced a good pillow fight.

He stares at the ceiling for a few seconds as he steadies his breathing. In, hold it for four seconds, out. He notices a crack in the ceiling and accidently takes a breath so deep that it feels like his body pauses for a second or two. He then steadies. In, hold it for four seconds, out. Lu Han looks back at the ceiling, the crack is still there; fortunately he never cared about those things. Breakfast is in exactly ten minutes and he’s not going to be ready in time, he’s craving a shower and he’s not going to eat until he gets it.

His steady attitude and raging temper won’t stop the men in white from dragging him to the dinner table, the other lost causes looks at him without saying anything. They never say anything. The food is disgusting and he feels like crying all over it, soaking the already disgustingly soggy cereal with salty tears. But it’d be stupid because the men in white will suspect him of being even sicker, and even if he actually was sicker he wouldn’t want them to know, they’d be the last to know. So he forces the food down, managing to make at least hundred different weird-looking faces in the meantime, some of the nearby-sitting lost causes giggle at him, but he couldn’t care less. He’s never had problems with food before, but this morning is differently difficult and some of the women in white seem to notice, something about their nature is more likeable than the men in white.

“Is everything okay?” One of them asks, Lu Han nods, “is the food bad?” She asks again, he quickly shakes his head, “you promise to tell me if anything’s bothering you, ok?” She asks again, again, he nods one more time.

Halfway through the bowl of cereal he gives up, the woman in white allows him to leave, but she doesn’t forget to ask one of the men in white if it’s a safe decision. The man in white looks intimidatingly at Lu Han who tries to curl into a ball, then the man shakes his head at the lady and waves at Lu Han ‘you’re allowed to leave now’.

Lu Han walks to his room with heavy feet, slams the door behind him, and falls down on his bead. Maybe he’s getting sick, as in fever-sick. He touches his forehead, the temperature seems normal. The rest of the morning he lies under his blankets, hoping ‘neither the men in white ‘nor the women in white feel like visiting him. And they don’t; they didn’t use to at least.

 

He’s been in his bed for maybe forty minutes, he’s been shaking uncontrollably for forty minutes too, and it’s causing his stomach to twist and twirl in odd ways. Lu Han knew as soon as he stepped into his room that he would throw all his breakfast up again, he just didn’t expect it to happen the way it did.

His stomach growls loudly and he feels dizzy as ever when one of the women in white enter his room, “leave,” he hisses before what feels like every organ in his body is hurled out of his mouth, leaving nothing but a burn in his throat. The woman in white leaves, but only for a second, soon she’s back with the men in white’s leader who immediately sighs at Lu Han, he’d say sorry if it wasn’t for the event of fire in his throat, so he just cries and hopes the man in white will understand.

He stares at his own vomit for a few moments before it’s cleaned up by the woman in white, it looks different from normal vomit.

 

Lu Han cries again when they ask him if he wants lunch, not because he’s not hungry, because  _hell he is_ , but because something is so off. His organs are definitely still where they’re supposed to be, but it feels like something went out with the food when he puked earlier, and he can’t quite describe what. “I’m sick,” he complains as the woman in white asks him for the tenth time if he wants lunch, “I’m sick, I’m going to throw up if you give me food, I’ll eat enough to make up for months when I’m okay.”

She sighs, probably trying to guilt trip him, but he’s not going to fall for that, he’s too good for that.  
So when she comes for dinner he follows her to the table but ends up making a scene when he realises just how non-existent his appetite is.

“You’re not developing an eating disorder, are you?” The lost boy next to him asks.

“Of course not, I love food,” Lu Han scolds, and it’s true, he really does want to eat, but he can’t.

“Good,” the boy says, Lu Han doesn’t remember his name, “because it belongs to me.”

Lu Han’s head moves up quickly and he meets the boy’s eyes, he recalls the name, Zitao, he’s Chinese too. “You can keep it.”

But his words to Zitao don’t keep him away from struggling with holding the food down as he lies in his bed that evening. He doesn’t want to throw up again, he’s scared of puking, the burn in the throat, the horrendous taste it leaves in the mouth, not to mention the smell. But his fear is like his words; it doesn’t keep him away from anything, and his dinner ends up on the floor.

The vomit still doesn’t look normal to Lu Han, but it's not like he's experienced with the concept anyway. 

 

Never has he been afraid of the dark before, but Lu Han suddenly finds himself hiding under his blanket, avoiding any eye-contact (or lack of it) with his dark room. He has desperately and with no luck tried to turn on his lamp, but he hasn’t been able to find the switcher yet. And as he lies alone in his room he  _swears_ that he hears a voice, he can’t figure out what it’s saying, because even though he’s lived in Korea for seven years now he’s still not fluent, and the voice is so silent yet so quick, and oh how it’s mumbling. “Is anyone here?” Lu Han whispers and feels like the main role in a horror movie which only scares him more, because hearing voices in your dark room at midnight is never good.  _Oh but you hear so much_ , he tells himself,  _that’s why you came here in the first place, isn’t it?_  True, but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s convinced these seconds are going to be his last. “Is anyone here?” He asks again and he’d bet his life he heard the noise of someone walking toward him. Lu Han wants to scream but his throat is still sore from all the vomiting.

The lights are suddenly turned on and a boy who seems to be around the same age as Lu Han smiles back at him, “you’re regretting all the puking now, aren’t you?”

Lu Han’s heart nearly jumps out of his chest and his breathing fastens, “who are you? Get out.”

The boy pouts, “not so fast buddy, this is in fact my room too.”

“No it’s not, we don’t have roommates.”

“You don’t know as much about the rules here as you think you do.”

“I’ve been here for as long as I remember.”

“You don’t remember much either, so I wouldn’t rely on you as a credible source. Allow me to introduce myself, my name’s Minseok and I’m sure we’ll be best friends.”

Lu Han doesn’t know if it’s due to shock, stress, lack of sleep, or maybe all three, but his eyes close as soon as Minseok finishes his sentence and the conversation dies.  

 

He genuinely expected it all to be a nightmare, but when he wakes up the next morning he’s met by Minseok’s smile, “good morning sleepy head,” he greets, patting Lu Han’s leg, “a nurse came by a few minutes ago, she told the psychiatrist, Dr Kim I think, that you should get as much sleep as possible since you were kind of sick yesterday. Are you feeling better today?”

“A woman in white was here? Why didn’t she tell you to leave?”

“A woman in white?” Minseok asks with a frown, “that’s what you call the nurses here? That’s not very nice of you, don’t they have names? You could at least just refer to her as a nurse since that’s her job.”

Lu Han shakes his head, “they’re not nurses. Nurses, psychiatrists, doctors, they all help people. The people in white have never helped me, the man in white, Dr Kim Joonmyun, the one you saw earlier probably, called me a lost cause. I can’t say that he’s not right, if I or any other lost cause here were curable, we would’ve been cured by now. This is a prison guarded by people in white; the prisoners are us lost causes.”

Minseok raises an eyebrow, “that’s so fake deep. But it sounds like you’re feeling good again, which is nice.”

“I feel fine now, thanks. You can leave now.” Lu Han tries to push Minseok off the bed, but the other male is way stronger than he is and just chuckles mockingly at Lu Han’s weak attempt, “I said _get off_ and get out of my room.”

Shaking his head Minseok slowly got off the bed, “this is my room too, I told you last night.”

“This is not your room!” Lu Han screams at the top of his lungs and throws a pillow at Minseok, “get out!”

A woman in white hurries into the room before Minseok gets to answer, grabbing Lu Han’s arms, “Lu Han calm down,” she says with a frown, “Jiyeon please bring Lu Han’s pills to his room right now.”

Lu Han keeps his eyes at Minseok, helplessly trying to point at him, “get him out of my room! Why didn’t you tell him to leave when you came in earlier? Don’t touch me!” He has never trusted the people in white, he hates when they force him to take pills, but he knows very well that if he refuses to take them they’ll just force-feed them to him, and that’s way more uncomfortable than taking them on his own. So when the other woman in white arrives with his medicine he takes it without complaining.

“Lu Han there are no one except you, Jiyeon, and I in here,” the first woman in white says, “there were nobody except you in here earlier this morning, you’re safe in here, don’t worry.”

He doesn’t care about being safe; he’s not scared of Minseok, he just wants him to leave, “b-but he,” he points at Minseok who stands with a smirk behind the woman in white, “he keeps telling me that this is his room too, it’s not his room, I don’t want him here.”

The two women in white look at each other for a second, then they look back at Lu Han, he doesn’t understand, why aren’t they telling Minseok to leave? “Get out!” He screams at Minseok who still smirks at him, “get out of here!” His voice goes up an octave and he flails his arms in various directions to make the woman in white let go of him, but she doesn’t, her grab only grows tighter as she forces Lu Han down on his back.

“Deep breaths Lu Han, deep breaths, let’s go eat breakfast, most of the other patients ate already so it’ll just be you, me, and a very few others.” She taps his shoulder lightly before standing up, “Let’s go.”

Lu Han looks at Minseok with wide eyes as he slowly walks out of his room, his mouth agape as the other male playfully waves at him, “but Minseok,” he whispers, well-knowing that the woman in white won’t hear him.

When he enters the dining room he sees Kim Jongin and Do Kyungsoo sitting by the table alone, he doesn’t know any of them very well, but he knows their names because he often goes for walks with Kyungsoo, and he often watches TV with Jongin in the evenings. He also knows that Kyungsoo and Jongin are very close friends, so he feels a little uneasy as he sits down across them, “hi,” he mumbles and sends them a smile, Jongin instantly smiles back.

“Good morning,” he beams, “did you sleep well? The porridge this morning is good; Zitao almost ate the entire thing without complaining. Kyungsoo and I are going for a walk after eating, do you want to come?”

“Jongin you’re not going for a walk you have a treatment session in fifteen minutes,” Kyungsoo interrupts.

“Okay then,” Jongin keeps smiling, “Kyungsoo is going for a walk later, do you want to come?”

Lu Han nods, “sure.” He enjoys Kyungsoo and Jongin’s company more than he enjoys most of the lost causes’ company. Kyungsoo is very quiet, Lu Han doesn’t know what kind of illness he has, but he rarely talks, which is extremely refreshing to be honest. Jongin is nice to be around when he’s Jongin, sometimes he’s persona changes, Lu Han doesn’t know the name of the disorder, but there are times when Jongin goes crazy and turns into a madman full of rage, it’s a bit scary. Lu Han puts a spoonful of porridge into his mouth, it tastes better than yesterday. He looks around; Minseok’s nowhere to be seen, maybe the meds helped after all. Lu Han doesn’t know.

 

He feels at peace walking around the small garden at noon, Kyungsoo’s walking beside him, not uttering a word as usual. The wind is blowing, but only a bit, and Lu Han enjoys the light breeze pushing his hair back, “times like these are so nice.” He doesn’t expect an answer from the other lost cause, but he can’t restrain from sharing his feelings. Moments of something close to joy come so rarely.

“They definitely are.”

Lu Han nearly jumps ten feet up the air when a voice answers his question, at first he’s merely shocked because Kyungsoo actually answered him, but then he realises that the voice doesn’t belong to the other lost cause, it belongs to “Minseok?”

The strange boy from earlier ruffles Lu Han’s hair with a grin, “yup, that’s me. The weather sure is nice today, isn’t it? It’s the perfect weather to go for a bicycle ride through town or something like that, maybe stop by for a bit of shopping. Stuff like that’s always nice.”

An ache appears in Lu Han’s heart, recalling ancient times where he’d go for shopping sprees with his (now ex) boyfriend Sehun every day. Now he doesn’t even know where Sehun lives. “Yeah, I used to do that all the time once, shopping and bicycling were quite my hobbies. Where did you go this morning when the women in white came to my room? Didn’t you have to eat breakfast or take medicine?”

Minseok shakes his head, “nah, there’s nothing wrong with me. I’ve waited outside for you the entire time.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you? Then why are you here?”

“Why would there be something wrong with me? I’m here to befriend you.”

Now Lu Han is really confused, “what’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m perfectly healthy, I enjoy sports, watching movies, singing, listening to music, shopping, bicycling, taking selcas, all those things. My health is exceptionally good, even though I’ve got to admit I do feel insecure about my looks at times, but it’s nothing to be hospitalised for.”

Lu Han freezes, “I love all those things! I-I used to do those things all the time! Before coming here those things were my favourite things. I especially love singing, my dream was always to become a singer but I was-“

“Too self-conscious.” Minseok finishes his sentence with a giggle, taking Lu Han’s hand in his, “we have a lot in common, don’t we? I told you we would be good friends.”

Lu Han doesn’t really understand anything, to be honest he’s super confused, but he decides to shrug it off, “that’s kind of cool though. You remind me of the faint memories from before I got here.”

“Back when you were dating Sehun, he’s a good kid.”

Lu Han nearly trips over his own feet in surprise, “you know Sehun from where? I can’t believe we even have the same contacts, w-wait does this mean you know that I’m gay?”

Minseok squeezes Lu Han’s hand, “I’m gay too, don’t worry.”

It should scare Lu Han that Minseok seems to be everything he used to be, but he’s too overwhelmed by the happiness of meeting someone he might be able to talk to, “I’m sorry I yelled at you last night when you came to my room, but I was sick and you appeared out of nowhere and said it was your room too, I was so confused. Again this morning, I’m really sorry for telling you to get out. You should’ve just told me you were here to be my friend.” He looks to his left to find Kyungsoo still walking silently beside him, “hey Kyungsoo this is Minseok, I have a lot in common with him, I’m sure you’ll like him too.”

Kyungsoo stops for a second to open his mouth but he stops himself before a word comes out, shaking his head as he continued to quietly accompany Lu Han on the walk around the garden.

 

Lu Han spends the entire day talking to Minseok, they talk at every meal, when watching a movie, he even allows the other male to sit in the bathroom whilst showering. They have everything in common, the only difference apparently being that Lu Han is sick and Minseok is not. They’re the same age too, and Minseok even had a short flirt with Sehun a few years ago, it’s almost like they’re the same person, with the exception of Lu Han being hospitalised as a psychiatric patient of course.

So because Lu Han is so busy being preoccupied by Minseok, he doesn’t notice the weird glances he gets from almost everyone in the TV room when they watch an episode of Pororo Jongin had insisted they all needed to watch (or else he’d set the entire room on fire, he said).  

‘Neither does he notice how the people in white have been tracking down his every move all day, not until a man in white comes into his room in the evening, a new kind of pill in his hand, “this one is in addition to the one you usually take, I think your short fever made you a little bit more unstable than usual, this should help you get back to normal.”

“More unstable than usual?” Other than his small outburst because of Minseok this morning Lu Han doesn’t recall being exceptionally unstable, “I don’t understand.” But he takes the pill nonetheless, knowing the consequences that come if he doesn’t.

For some reason Minseok stays in his room that night, holding Lu Han’s hand when he goes to sleep, “I’m feeling a bit uneasy about sleeping,” Lu Han confesses, “I had a pretty tough night last night.” So Minseok keeps his hand on Lu Han’s, smiling brightly as he drifts off to dreamland.

 

Everything goes smoothly the next week or so, it’s like Minseok’s finally managed to light up Lu Han’s world and save him from the endless darkness that was slowly consuming him earlier. So he’s a little weary when a woman in white (a _nurse_ , Minseok had insisted) asks him to come talk to Psychiatrist Kim Joonmyun for a while, “without that friend of yours,” she remarks as Lu Han’s about to ask if he can bring Minseok.

“It’s okay,” his new friend reassures him, “I’ll do something else whilst waiting, you go talk to the psychiatrist, and remember that he’s here to help you.” It reminds Lu Han of when he first got admitted to the hospital and actually thought he would get help.

“So,” the man in white, Joonmyun, Lu Han reminds himself, says as they sit in a small room together, “I’ve been discussing this issue with the other psychiatrists and nurses who’ve been observing you for a while now, and we’ve decided to higher your doses.”

Lu Han frowns; he hates he pills he takes already, “why? Why are you giving me more medicine? I’m doing so well these days, I’ve felt so good, I’ve been nice to everybody, Minseok has helped me so much. If it continues like this I’ll be ready for discharge soon. Why would you higher my doses now?”

Joonmyun folds his hands and looks at Lu Han with an apologetic awkward smile, “I’m happy you feel like you’re doing good, but what we feel doesn’t always represent reality. We have to add the extra medicine to the pills you take already, we have notified your mother about this since she’s the one who pays the hospital bill, and she was okay with it. It’ll help you, I’m convinced.”

“No,” Lu Han says abruptly, “no way, I-I don’t care. I’m doing so well these days! I’ve felt happiness, or something close to happiness at least, the last few days, you should give me less medicine, not add some. What do you want me to do?”

“What we want you to do,” The man in white, Lu Han refuses to acknowledge him as anything else, looks truly sorry as he speaks, “is to tell Minseok to leave you alone. You need to cope with your illness without him, he’s not helping you, no matter what he tells you. If you want to make friends you can spend more time with the other patients here, I’m sure some of them would be just as good friends for you as Minseok is. Huang Zitao maybe? He’s Chinese too, so is Zhang Yixing, he has schizophrenia too, his case is very similar to yours actually.”

“I won’t tell him to leave!” Lu Han yells, “I don’t want to befriend the other lost causes they’re all stupid! I hate them! I hate this place, I only like Minseok!”

Joonmyun puts a hand on Lu Han’s arm to calm him down, but it has the opposite effect and Lu Han jumps up from his chair and runs to the door, “Lu Han please,” Joonmyun grabs the Chinese boy’s shoulders, “tell me a bit about Minseok then, when did he first visit you?”

“About a week ago at night,” Lu Han mutters under his breath, “after I vomited in the evening.”

“When you were physically sick?”

“Yes, he appeared that night and he’s been by my side since then.”

“Don’t you fight that a bit weird? That he’s here all the time, he only talks to you, and he suddenly appears in the middle of the night.”

“Let go of me!” Lu Han screams and tries to get out of Joonmyun’s grip, but the man in white is a lot stronger, the people in white are usually unusually strong, “let go!” He feels tears of angers in his eyes, the people in white are all the same, they never listen.

Joonmyun calls another man in white who comes in and drags Lu Han with him back to his room, forcing an indefinite number of pills down his throat, “try to sleep now.”

And he sleeps.

 

Minseok holds his hand when he wakes up, “good morning Lulu.”

Lu Han takes a deep breath, “h-how did you get in here in the first place? The man in white told me I should tell you to leave, b-but I don’t want you to leave. What do I do? I thought I was doing good, why are they giving me all this medicine.”

“I came here because you let go,” Minseok says with a sly smile, “when you vomited that day you brought me here.”

“What does that mean? I threw you up?”

Minseok laughs, it’s the most beautiful thing Lu Han has ever heard, “no you goofball, I came to help you because you hit rock bottom. I’m trying to spread positivity.”

“I told the man in white that you only ever helped me,” Lu Han cries out, sitting up to rest his head on Minseok’s shoulder, “I don’t know what I keep doing wrong, and the pills make me so tired.”

With sad eyes Minseok places a kiss on Lu Han’s temple, “you’re doing all you can, I’m so proud of you.” He places another kiss on Lu Han’s cheek, then on his nose, then on his mouth. Lu Han feels his cheek turning red but he doesn’t say anything. “But remember that Joonmyun is just doing his job, it’s not his fault that it’s hard to understand you.”

They stay in the hugging position for a while, Lu Han feeling too tired to say anything, the heavy medicine causing him to feel like he’s never slept a day in his life.

 

Things for some reason continue to spiral out of control. Lu Han feels like he’s completely sane and joyful when he’s with Minseok, but every minute without the other male is devastating and tiring, he can barely stay awake for more than two hours because of the medicine, and he has trouble holding food down. He’s moved to a new ward, a closed one, a woman in white explains. It’s supposed to help him focus on getting better, even though it only makes him feel terribly lonely. Minseok is still with him most of the time, but he’s starting to disappear when the people in white visit Lu Han, which only makes the situation even worse. Lu Han doesn’t know who he is anymore; he doesn’t know who Minseok is either. They rarely talk, Lu Han is usually too tired.

One day he sits beside Kyungsoo in the TV room, Kyungsoo’s moved to the closed ward too, Lu Han doesn’t know why. “You know he’s not real, right?” Kyungsoo asks as an episode of Pucca Club ends,

“Minseok.” It’s the first time Lu Han hears the other lost cause speak.

“He is real, he’s been with me for more than a month now.”

“You’re schizophrenic, you fucking idiot.”

“He’s real.”

“Only in your head,” Kyungsoo keeps staring at the TV.

“He’s _real_.”

“Only in your head.”

Lu Han turns to Minseok who sits on his right side, “M-Minseok, are you not real?”

Minseok smiles as usual, “of course.”

“He says he’s real.”

“ _Only_ ,” Kyungsoo finally looks Lu Han in the eyes, “in your fucking head. You created him because you’re mentally unstable, that’s why Joonmyun’s feeding you four billion kinds of medicine, that’s why Minseok only talks to you, that’s why he suddenly appeared one day for no reason. You fucking created him because your stupid ass brain hit a dead end.”

Lu Han wants to cry.

 

He’s been in bed for five days now, only leaving it to go to the bathroom. He hasn’t talked to Minseok for five days, but the other male still sits beside him every moment of every day.

Lu Han has forgotten all colours except white. He has forgotten what real food tastes like, he’s been tube-fed for five days. He has forgotten what talking feels like.

It’s as if he’s brain dead, but then again it doesn’t. Maybe he’s just mentally dead. Maybe he just hit a dead end.

A month passes like this, two month pass like this, three months, half a year. Minseok hasn’t left his side.

Lu Han feels dead, but somewhat at peace.

 

 

**2015**

 “The February ’12 Case?” Jongdae asks, handing the papers back to Sehun, “dude what the Hell are you writing about?”

Sehun’s jaw drops, “you don’t know about that case?” he gently places the papers beside him, “everyone knows this case.”

“I don’t,” his roommate mumbles and opens a bag of crisps, “so enlighten me.”

At first Sehun doesn’t really want to answer because Jongdae never really cares about anything except wild parties and girls, but he decides to share the story anyway, “the case revolves around this boy named Lu Han who got admitted to a psychiatric hospital because his schizophrenia went out of control. He had lived well with the disease for most of his life, but it apparently all became too much for him after his boyfriend broke up with him not to mention that he had to drop out of university and quit his dreams of becoming a singer.”

“Sad,” Jongdae just comments, not seemingly interested at all.

Sehun sighs deeply, “you don’t give a fucking shit, do you?” He earns a nod from Jongdae, “Lu Han’s life at the psychiatric ward was obviously never joyful, but it was doable, with constant support from doctors and medicine he was able to live a somewhat normal life behind those isolating doors.”

Jongdae places the bag of crisps on the table, interrupting the younger boy, “that sounds fairly normal though? What’s the big deal about a schizophrenic patient having a hard time because his boyfriend dumped him? I can imagine it must’ve been even tougher since he was you know, gay. You should know right? Since you’re pretty gay too.”

“You didn’t let me get to the point: Despite doing okay in the hospital, Lu Han was nowhere near being free from his illness, one day he got physically sick and very strange things started to happen around him. After that day he started seeing this boy named Minseok, it was obvious from the beginning that Minseok wasn’t real but just one of Lu Han’s many hallucinations formed by schizophrenia. I know that doesn’t sound like anything special, and it really wasn’t at first, but then the psychiatrists started giving Lu Han more and more medicine to make the hallucinations become more bearable for him, but it didn’t help.” Sehun feels relieved upon noticing that Jongdae finally listens to what he says, “Lu Han refused to talk to anyone but Minseok, so they moved him to the closed ward, which didn’t help at all. He kept spiralling into this mental coma, he refused to eat, talk, take his meds, he only wanted to talk to Minseok, in the end he couldn’t even leave his bed, not trusting anyone but the boy made up by his imagination. After half a year of complete madness he was pronounced brain dead.”

The older boy’s eyes widen, “what, he died? That’s so sad, how did he die though? It doesn’t really make much sense to me.”

“It didn’t make a whole lot of sense to anybody,” Sehun confesses, “Lu Han himself once briefly mentioned jokingly that he might’ve thrown Minseok up that day he got physically sick. Most theories believe that Minseok was created by Lu Han’s mind to remind him of all the things he was before he got ill, like the last bit of his sanity, if you catch my drift?”

Jongdae leans back in his chair, “like when he created Minseok his sanity left him and he went completely cray-cray?”

Sehun rolls his eyes because only Jongdae of all people would use the word ‘cray-cray’ whilst talking about psychology, “I suppose you could say so. Most people believe it was the amount of medicine that killed him in the end, Kim Joonmyun, the psychiatrist who worked with Lu Han said it was a possibility, but that it was unlikely what happened. Some people believe Minseok was some kind of demon who sucked Lu Han’s energy, even though I have to say that theory is even more unlikely. Either way the case is extremely interesting and impossible to reasonably explain. There have been several interviews with other patients from the same psychiatric hospital, but none of the information they offered was very useful. It seems like we’ve hit the dead end of this case.”

“If there’s no way to explain what happened, why don’t you just write about something else?” Jongdae stands up from his chair to throw out the bag of crisps.

Feeling a weird anxiousness in his stomach, Sehun reconsiders replying to the question, “I dated Lu Han once, I think I told you about him back when we first moved in.”

Jongdae’s jaw drops, “Jesus Christ dude that’s right? Wow I’m so sorry, I really didn’t mean to offend you with my lack of interest, I can’t believe he died, I’m sorry.”

Sehun shrugs, “it’s okay, it’s been three and a half years, I’m over it completely, nothing lasts forever and all that. Lu Han was sick when I met him, I knew we wouldn’t get a happy ending. Also it’s not because I dated Lu Han this case is so special to me, it’s because I dated a guy named Minseok too about one year ago.”

“You dated an evil spirit? That’s kind of cool.”

“Why the fuck did I tell you this in the first place? I’m really disturbed yet fascinated by this case, and you act like it’s a joke?”

His roommate’s expression immediately turns serious again, “sorry, that was uncalled for. Your story’s so wicked though, you’re going to get the biggest A+ ever given in history. I hope you manage to find that Minseok guy one day again at least, unless he’s dead too of course.”

Sehun doesn’t reply, instead he thinks back on the beautiful smiles Lu Han used to give him all those years ago, wondering if maybe things would’ve turned out differently if he hadn’t decided to end the relationship so suddenly.


End file.
